


vessel and veins

by lagaudiere



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Established-But-New Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25925410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lagaudiere/pseuds/lagaudiere
Summary: He thought about how nice it would be if he were able to easily cross the floor and wrap his arms around Richie’s waist, hold him tightly, press his face between Richie’s shoulders and inhale the clean, fresh smell of laundry detergent. And Richie would laugh, a little, with happiness, and when he was finished with his task he would turn around and kiss him.It was a familiar chain of thought, and Eddie abruptly felt annoyed with himself for going through it again. There was no reason to keep doing this. It was only his own stupid, outdated insecurities that kept him from doing exactly what he wanted to do. What was he afraid of?So, with more square-shouldered resolve than he would have liked to need for such a small gesture, Eddie crossed quietly over the floor and put his arms around Richie’s middle.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 28
Kudos: 320





	vessel and veins

**Author's Note:**

> this is based so strongly on "your arms around me" by jens lekman that it might as well just be songfic. the title is from a different jens lekman song, "every little hair knows your name". both reddie classics! 
> 
> minor warning in this one for a semi-graphic description of Accidental Hand Injury and also some talk about parental manipulation. 
> 
> thank you to clown chat and to anyone else who is still here after these many, many months.

Eddie was staring again. 

Richie was across the expanse of the hardwood kitchen floor from him, dicing an avocado as he explained to Eddie the plot of an episode of Survivor Eddie had fallen asleep halfway through the previous night. He had gotten into his head to try making homemade gourmet guacamole of some kind, the way he sometimes did when he saw a recipe for something on Facebook and became convinced it was easier than it looked. 

“He was totally blindsided,” Richie said, “because Josè told him the advantage was fake —“ 

Eddie was only half-listening. 

He had gotten used to staring at Richie when Richie wasn’t looking. Eddie’s eyes followed a well-traveled path by now, from the slightly curling hair at the nape of Richie’s neck down and across his broad back, tracing the shoulder blades Eddie could see just the hint of through the thin fabric of Richie’s t-shirt. He knew how strong they were now, how it felt to have them moving under his hands. 

Most of the time when Eddie had stared, previously, it was before Richie had kissed him. They had been living together for months; _living together_ was really the charitable way to put it, because really Eddie had been staying in Richie’s guest room for months, like the worst stereotype of an old friend going through a midlife crisis. Richie insisted he didn’t mind, as accommodating a host as anyone could be, and the truth was that Eddie had never thought seriously, when he was discharged from the hospital clutching his bloodstained clothing in a plastic bag and a bottle of pain pills he would refuse to take, about going anywhere else. 

He’d taken the flight to Los Angeles. On the few occasions that he had needed to go back to New York, Richie had gone with him. And Eddie had learned more than he previously had in a lifetime about watching someone from across a room when you were sure they weren’t looking, about memorizing the shape of someone’s face in silence and in laughter, about biting down on the words you wanted to say every time you opened your mouth. 

They had been living together for months, and ten days ago Richie had kissed him. Eddie hadn’t been able to do it first. He had managed to spit out a tangled, incoherent half-confession of his feelings, he had said, “Do you know what I mean?” And Richie had, and had taken Eddie’s face between his hands and kissed him. 

“Thank you,” Eddie had said, slightly dazed. 

“Don’t thank me for kissing you, man,” Richie had replied, “you can kiss me anytime,” but Eddie had meant _for understanding_. 

It should have been easier, after that. Eddie’s wife had told him many times during eight years of marriage that he was bad at showing physical affection. Which, Myra said, might not have been such a problem if he was better at showing affection verbally, or in any other way. If there were five love languages, Eddie had never been fluent in any of them. He had expected that he would be better with Richie, trying to speak what was, really, his native tongue. But it wasn’t as easy as that. 

Eddie had lost, somewhere along the way, whatever courage he’d had as a kid that had allowed him to physically demand Richie’s attention. They were both hesitant about it now, about touching each other casually, even though they had said and done things of a much greater degree of intimacy than leaning against one another on the couch. Eddie was worse about it, though. He had gotten pretty good at looking at Richie intently until Richie said “dude, c’mere,” and pulled Eddie forward into his personal space, but that was about as far as he could get. 

It was strange to realize that he wanted that kind of easy domesticity, after resenting his poor performance of it for years. He wanted quick morning kisses over the newspaper on his way to work, if Richie was the person he was kissing. He wanted the effortlessness of it that had eluded him for so long, the ease of living your life in rhythm with someone else. 

So Eddie was watching him from across Richie’s kitchen, which was really essentially _their_ kitchen at this point, if you thought about it, and feeling bitterly annoyed by himself. 

Richie was still explaining the Survivor episode, Eddie’s thoughts moving too quickly in circles around his mind. “So Jeff was saying women don’t find idols at the same rate as men, but it’s like a society thing, right, you have to be willing to go out and look for them—“ 

He thought about how nice it would be if he were able to easily cross the floor and wrap his arms around Richie’s waist, hold him tightly, press his face between Richie’s shoulders and inhale the clean, fresh smell of laundry detergent. And Richie would laugh, a little, with happiness, and when he was finished with his task he would turn around and kiss him. 

It was a familiar chain of thought, and Eddie abruptly felt annoyed with himself for going through it again. There was no reason to keep doing this. It was only his own stupid, outdated insecurities that kept him from doing exactly what he wanted to do. What was he afraid of? 

So, with more square-shouldered resolve than he would have liked to need for such a small gesture, Eddie crossed quietly over the floor and put his arms around Richie’s middle. 

Immediately, Richie’s whole body flinched, and there was the sharp clanging noise of metal falling onto the stone countertop. 

_Fuck_ , Eddie thought, a note of harsh panic ringing in his head — he had done something wrong, had immediately fucked it up — and he scrambled backwards a few paces. Then Richie said, “Oh, shit,” and Eddie saw the blood. 

“Jesus,” Richie said. He grimaced helplessly at Eddie, looking frozen. “I, uh, the knife slipped? I guess?” 

Richie’s hand was bleeding profusely, where he was holding it frozen in midair above the avocados and the cutting board. He’d cut deep into the meat of his palm and the knife he had dropped was red with his blood. More blood than you would think could flow from such a small injury. For a moment, all Eddie saw was red, and the remembered taste of the sewer air beneath Derry was thick in his throat. 

Then, just as quickly, the fog cleared. Eddie Kaspbrak was always prepared for emergencies. 

“Don’t move,” he said, and he went for the first aid kit he had stowed in the pantry immediately after moving in. “I know what to do, just hold still.” 

He snatched his pair of reading glasses from the kitchen counter, opened the first aid kit, and took Richie forcefully by the elbow to examine the wound. 

It wasn’t a careful cut, like a slice someone would make to complete a blood vow. It was deep and diagonal, cutting through tissue and maybe down to the bone. 

It made Eddie feel sick, but worse, it made him feel ashamed. All he’d wanted was to be able to do this normally, easily. And he’d done it badly enough that Richie was bleeding. 

He could still remember how to snap into this mode, the one he’d used to treat Ben’s cuts on the day they met and in fourth grade when Bowers had jammed a pencil into Stan’s arm and Eddie had carefully used tweezers to remove the lead. He’d bandaged up Richie’s cuts and bruises plenty of times. 

Now, he washed the cut carefully, Richie wincing under the gentle stream of water. “We’ll let it bleed for a minute,” Eddie said. “Just to flush out the bacteria.” 

Richie was biting his lip. “Okay.” 

It seemed like too much blood, though, still dripping from Richie’s hand as Eddie held it over the sink. It would stain the metal. Blood and sinks, blood and drains, bad combination. Hard not to think there was something, beneath, that would smell it. 

The bleeding needed to be stopped, so Eddie applied his medical-grade gauze, wrapped Richie’s hand the best he could, and taped it in place. Richie was still gritting his teeth; trying to hide how much it hurt, Eddie thought. 

“It was a clean knife, at least,” he said. “No risk of, of getting tetanus or anything.” 

“Thanks, Eddie,” Richie said, gently. 

Eddie looked again at the gauze. There was blood already beginning to seep through. “Yeah, you’re gonna need a real medical professional to look at that.” 

“It doesn’t seem that bad,” Richie said, dubiously. “I mean, it hurts like a bitch, but these things always look worse than they are, right?” 

“It’s pretty deep. I think it’s going to need stitches.” 

Richie moaned. “Eds, come on, I don’t want to go to the hospital.” Because he had made it to age forty without having anything seriously, physically wrong with him, Richie seemed to think there was nothing that could happen to him he couldn’t fix with medical marijuana. 

Eddie thought, momentarily, of Richie nearly three decades earlier snapping his broken arm into place. 

“It’s not optional,” Eddie said, sternly. “Where are your keys?”

—

When Eddie drove, Richie usually clicked on music or some podcast as soon as they were on the road, even if it was a five-minute trip. He did it, Eddie thought, partially to be annoying — Eddie preferred driving in silence and always had — and partially because his own attention span was so short he genuinely found it boring. He didn’t turn on the radio then. He sat holding his injured right hand in his left and looked sort of lost. 

The hospital wasn’t that far away. Ten minutes on the highway. Eddie was, for the moment, deeply glad not to be in New York. 

“Does it hurt?” Eddie said, which was a stupid question, but he said it for lack of anything better to say. 

Richie shook his head, slightly, unbelievably. “It’s not that bad,” he said. 

It occurred to Eddie that Richie hardly ever complained about anything. Well, that wasn’t exactly right — he complained about trivial, unimportant things, like quinoa and Eddie’s taste in science fiction movies and nights with their friends when someone inevitably suggested playing that board game with the little trains. And he complained about big-picture things, too, read news headlines out loud and proclaimed that some politician Eddie was only vaguely aware of was everything that was wrong with this country. 

But he never complained about the personal things. Even despite all the upheaval to his life and career the past few months, he never complained, only turned the topic to his PR strategy and what he was doing to fix things. And Eddie had caught him, once, a few months ago, scrolling through the photos on Stan’s Facebook page. They didn’t seem to delete or make any alteration to a Facebook page when its owner had died — maybe the family had to ask for it, and Stan’s hadn’t. Eddie had looked at it himself. There were only a few photos of Stan, a few more he had taken himself of birds or of his wife, Patricia, in various tourist settings. Eddie had watched over Richie’s shoulder as Richie had reached the last of the photos, paused for a long moment on it, and then scrolled to the top to begin looking again. 

He’d asked if Richie wanted to talk about it and he’d said no, that it was okay, that it was good to see a little more of Stan’s life. It hadn’t felt like the whole truth, but Eddie had felt like more of an intruder then, a visitor in Richie’s life and always a little awkward around him. So Eddie had let it go. 

He was pretty sure Richie was always thinking, in any given situation, about people who had it worse than him and how lucky he should feel. Which wasn’t a bad tendency — Eddie appreciated it, especially considering his own tendency for self-pity. Eddie had fallen many times into thinking his pain was unique, that no one else could ever possibly understand it. Richie wasn’t like that, Eddie thought, but he should still have said it when something hurt him. He should have been able to do that. 

“Don’t be a martyr,” Eddie said. “It’s, like… gushing blood.” 

“Gross.” Richie sounded betrayed by the phrasing. “Don’t say _gushing_.” 

The car in front of them paused for a yellow traffic light even though Eddie was sure they both could’ve made it through, and he tapped his fingers against the steering wheel impatiently. “It’s okay,” he says. “If it hurts.” 

Richie sighed. “Sure,” he said. “I mean, it hurts, obviously. But I’ve had worse.” He looks at Eddie out of the corner of his eye. “ _You’ve_ had worse.” 

It was true. Eddie had bled much more than this — twice, on separate occasions, on the same day. He could understand it, not wanting to dwell on a minor injury after that. He might have been laughing it off if it were his own. But it wasn’t; it was Richie’s. 

The light turned green. 

“Would you have even gone to the hospital if I wasn’t here?” Eddie said, slightly accusingly, turning on his blinker to merge onto the highway.

Richie had walked through so much of their childhood with unbandaged skinned knees, their adolescence with black eyes. He hated how clearly he could picture a younger Richie, ten or fifteen years earlier, hurting himself and shrugging it off. At least Eddie had been there this time. 

But then, he thought with another surge of guilt, Richie wouldn’t have gotten hurt if Eddie hadn’t been there. 

Richie laughed. “Probably not, like, immediately.” 

“That is so terrible,” Eddie said. “You definitely need stitches. Your whole hand would turn green and fall off.” 

“Thank God for you, Dr. K,” Richie said, the echo of childhood so clear in his voice that Eddie had to swallow down a sudden lump in his throat. 

— 

In the hospital waiting room, Eddie filled out Richie’s paperwork for him. “No family history, right?” he said. “Of anything serious.” 

Richie thought about it. “I mean, high blood pressure,” he said. “And Mom had lung cancer. But she smoked Virginia Slims until she was seventy.” 

Eddie wrote it down anyway. 

“How do you know my Social Security number, dude?” Richie said, craning his neck to peer at Eddie’s handwriting, and Eddie realized he probably should have pretended to need to ask. 

“I just saw the card in your wallet,” he said, “last week, when you said to pay for delivery because you were on the phone. I remembered.” He had a good memory for numbers. He had been asked to go through Richie’s wallet in the first place. He hadn’t done anything wrong, he thought defensively. 

But Richie didn’t seem bothered by it. He nodded and slumped backwards in his chair, looking more bored than anything. 

Eddie returned the paperwork to the elderly, harried-looking woman manning the intake desk. “Any idea how long it’ll be?” he said, hoping that his voice sounded moderate, not too demanding. 

“It could be a while, honey, but not _too_ long,” she said, completely meaninglessly. 

“What, so, like… twenty minutes?” Eddie said. It was the number he had already arrived at based on his experience with hospital waiting rooms, taking into account time of day and number of people waiting, although of course just a guess. She nodded. 

“It could be,” she said, so Eddie gave up. He eyed the other people waiting while he returned to where Richie was sitting. One man was coughing incessantly into a wool scarf, which seemed unsanitary. The others were mostly leafing listlessly through magazines. Nobody else was visibly bleeding. 

When he got back, Richie was scrolling through Twitter on his phone. “What are you reading?” Eddie said. 

“Nothing important,” Richie said, clicking his phone off. “It was like a Twitter thread about labor conditions in wrestling.” 

“Okay,” Eddie said, uncomprehending. 

Richie shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He was resting his injured hand on his knee. Eddie was sitting on his other side, but he thought about reaching for it to examine the gauze instead. It would make Richie uncomfortable, though. He looked miserable enough already. 

“They said it was going to be a while, but not that long,” Eddie said. “Whatever the fuck that means. It’s not even late, I don’t know why there’s like, nobody working here. I should look into their funding.” 

“I told you I should’ve played the celebrity card,” Richie said. He sounded distracted but not sincerely annoyed. The man who had been coughing into his scarf was being ushered away by a nurse, which did sincerely annoy Eddie. 

“No, you shouldn’t. I bet they wouldn’t even know who you are.” 

“Well, what the fuck is the point of having the gold-plated insurance card?” 

“You wanna go offer the nurse your autograph?” 

“Sure,” Richie said, “in blood,” and he laughed, but his face was a mask of discomfort a moment later. He kept looking warily at the other people in the waiting room. 

Eddie had never hated hospitals. He knew people who were genuinely, chronically sick mostly did. For them, the ritual of medical assessment meant inevitable bad news. For Eddie, though, it generally meant reassurance. It meant he could be told that for a man of his age, his body was exceptionally strong and healthy, and when he didn’t believe it someone would conduct a test to check for the specific problem he for whatever reason temporarily believed he had. He’d come to love the brief relief of being told that, in someone’s professional opinion, he was normal, he was okay. Even in childhood, he had sometimes tried to persuade his mother to take him to the doctor instead of treating him at home, hoping to be told there was nothing wrong. That had never gone well. 

It was understandable to hate hospitals, though. The association with bad memories. Eddie thought, disconcerted, that the last time Richie had been in a hospital waiting room he’d been waiting for Eddie, during the surgery in Derry where they’d knit his shoulder back together. He was sure Richie was thinking of it too. 

“I don’t love the idea of stitches,” Richie said suddenly. “I mean, I just hate needles. I don’t like — you know, things going through skin. I can’t even wear contacts.” 

“It’s really not that bad,” Eddie said. He’d hated the look of stitches in his face, but his scar had healed alright. “You won’t feel anything.” 

Eddie thought of the possibility of nerve damage, of permanent numbness. Eddie had two places on his body he could press a finger into, hard, without feeling anything at all: a small spot on his cheek where the knife had gone in and a larger area on the back of his shoulder, where the claw had. He hated the idea of Richie losing any feeling in his hands. They were good hands, strong and careful, and Eddie liked holding his hand. He’d found that out in the last ten days. 

Ten days ago, Richie had told Eddie he loved him. He’d said it very seriously, almost like he was delivering bad news. Eddie couldn’t remember what inadequate words he had replied with, at first. He hadn’t said it until three days later, although he’d known for months. Richie had said it every day since, and each time Eddie felt like the unintentional recipient of a priceless gift intended for someone else. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Richie, exactly; it was more that he doubted himself, his ability to keep being either the person he’d tried to be over the last few months or the person Richie had loved all those years ago. 

“You don’t have to come back with me if you don’t want to,” Richie said. “I know it’s like, bad memories.” 

Eddie whipped his head around from where he’d been eyeing an adult woman reading a copy of Highlights Magazine to glare at him. “What the hell? Of course I’m going with you,” he said. “I’m not gonna leave you _alone_.” And a vision came to his mind that did frighten him, which was of broken needles oozing blood underneath Keene’s. No, they would not split up. 

“Okay,” Richie said, and he smiled at Eddie in that way he sometimes did, like he was sincerely grateful just for Eddie’s presence. 

Eddie couldn’t make himself feel that he deserved it. Richie had flinched away from him so quickly, and Eddie knew it was just an instinctive response, he _knew_ it — he had jumped plenty of times when Richie had touched him, both before and after that first kiss. But knowing better didn’t change the sick feeling in his stomach. 

Eddie reached over and took Richie’s hand, the one that hadn’t been hurt. He had never done that in public before, he realized, and a lump formed in his throat at that thought. He held onto it tightly, trying not to squeeze too hard but to convey silently some portion of what he felt. 

Richie’s thumb brushed over the back of Eddie’s hard, lightly, and he kept smiling. 

—

In the end, Richie didn’t need many stitches. Apparently, he had sliced through a somewhat important vein — not too deeply, but deeply enough that the nurse who looked him over said it was the right decision to come to the hospital. Richie gave Eddie a sheepish look at that, conceding that he had been wrong. 

“Your friend here did a good job of wrapping up your hand,” she said. 

“Yep,” Richie agreed cheerfully. “He’s basically a professional.” 

They were even assured that there wouldn’t be much of a scar. That made Eddie feel a little self-conscious about his own, but he was relieved that it wasn’t worse. A doctor gave Richie a prescription for mild pain medication and a warning to be more careful with knives. 

“This isn’t even the stupidest way I’ve hurt myself,” Richie said. “But I appreciate the advice.” 

Eddie looked at the wall over the nurse’s shoulder. He tried to memorize all the instructions she was giving so he could remember how to change Richie’s bandage and make sure that he didn’t take too many pain pills, but he still felt vaguely ashamed of himself. 

Yes, it was irrational. It had only been an accident. He should have said something, should have asked for permission before just wrapping his arms around Richie without saying anything. But that was a perfectly ordinary thing to do, wasn’t it? It was normal to want to touch someone not as a prelude to sex or out of some obligation, but just because, at that moment, you wanted to? 

Of course, that wasn’t what people did when they had only been in a relationship for ten days, probably. It was beginning to occur to Eddie that he had no idea of what was normal. Was it normal to keep track of the days? 

Richie didn’t say much as they left with a prescription for a non-opioid painkiller in hand; he’d asked for that himself, although clearly due to Eddie’s influence. Eddie couldn’t think of precisely what to say, either. He felt — well, he felt guilty, an old familiar feeling even though he’d been having it less and less lately. 

“Can’t believe I’m going to have to type with only one hand,” Richie said as they got into the car, Eddie on the driver’s side again. “I guess this is the year I learn to use Siri.” 

“You’ll be fine in a couple of days,” Eddie said absently. “I can type for you.” 

“I can think of a couple other things you could help with too,” Richie said, and Eddie laughed at that in spite of himself. 

“See if I do when you ask me like that,” he said, and then, “Do you want to go get ice cream?” 

That’s what they had done after Eddie was released from the hospital in Derry, first thing. He’d insisted on it. 

The local shops from their childhood were gone, so Richie had driven them to Dairy Queen. Eddie had ordered a large mint chocolate blizzard and managed to eat about half of it. Richie had just ordered vanilla soft serve, in the little plastic cup. Eddie remembered thinking that was so endearing he was nearly moved to tears by it. Of course, he had still been on medication at the time. 

“I used to do this with my mom,” Eddie had confessed, after he’d handed over his ice cream for Richie to finish. “Every time I had to go to the doctor. When I was really young. I just remembered that.” 

Richie had been silent for a moment. “Is that a good memory or a bad one?” 

“I don’t know. Both, I guess.” It had been strange to realize that he did have good memories of his mother, mixed in with all of the bad, with the stinging betrayal of the lies she’d told him. 

It had been one of their rituals, an act of manipulation that was, Eddie thought, probably unconscious. Or maybe that was giving her too much credit — but he’d loved it, anyway, the way it felt like a conspiracy between the two of them when she said “Oh, let’s be bad,” and ordered a size larger than what he’d asked for. 

“Uh, sure,” Richie said now. “That’s traditional, right?” Eddie nodded. 

They drove to Baskin Robbins on the way home. Eddie ordered raspberry sorbet and Richie ordered vanilla. 

“Don’t say a word,” he said, as they sat in the parking lot to eat. That was part of the tradition too— it would melt before you got home. “It’s honestly my favorite.” 

“I know,” Eddie said. “I believe you.” 

Richie looked over at him from the passenger seat, eyebrows raised. “Okay. Are we going to talk about it?” 

Eddie cleared his throat. “Talk about what?” 

Richie rolled his eyes. “C’mon, Eddie,” he said. “You know you’re being weird.” 

It felt stupidly adolescent, really, as if no time had passed between them at all. Eddie worried sometimes that he had never learned how to love Richie in a grown-up way. 

“Look,” he said, “you flinched pretty badly back there, dude. When I — you know.” His voice sounded defensive, even to himself. 

“When you touched me?” Richie said, sounding confused. Eddie looked down at his shoes, feeling his face redden with embarrassment. Was he really so repressed that he couldn’t hear the word _touch_ without feeling uncomfortable with it?

Eddie knew himself — he’d always been all prickly, biting angles, and Richie had too. That was what Eddie loved about him, even when they were kids. They sharpened each other’s edges. But Richie was a little softer now, and Eddie sometimes just felt like his edges had gone dull. 

“Hey,” Richie said, “Eds?” and he said that with so much concern, and there were so many years behind it, that it sort of made Eddie want to cry. Richie reached out his uninjured hand for Eddie’s, mirroring the way they’d sat together at the hospital, and Eddie let him take it. 

“I just,” Eddie said, and then hesitated and made himself start over. “Look, I’m not _mad_ about it, but you’ve done that before. This is me trying to, like, communicate, okay, so if that kind of stuff bothers you I won’t do it. But I, sometimes I look at you and it’s like we’re still not…” He tried to illustrate what he meant with a tense, frustrated hand motion. “And I don’t know if it’s because we’re both just bad at this or if there’s something else we should, like, _talk_ about.” 

His ice cream was melting in the cardboard cup he was holding, which crinkled a little with how tightly he was holding onto it. 

Richie looked at him like he didn’t fully believe what he was saying. “It doesn’t _bother_ me,” he said. “It… surprises me sometimes. That you’re really here.” 

He shrugged, a little embarrassed, and there was something inside Eddie that had twisted wrong and that straightened itself out, looking at him now. 

Richie’s thumb ran slowly, comfortingly along the back of Eddie’s hand, and it felt stupid to have worried so deeply when there was so much in Richie’s eyes. 

“Eddie,” he said. “I always want you to touch me.” 

Eddie felt stupidly overwhelmed by it. Without allowing himself to hesitate more than a moment, he put the ice cream cup on the dashboard and twisted in his seat to manage an awkward, one-armed hug. Richie met him halfway, his arm tight around Eddie’s shoulder. It pressed Eddie’s face sort of uncomfortably into Richie’s collarbone, and he smelled a little like the antiseptic air of hospitals, but Eddie didn’t pull away. 

“I think it’s only if we’re both kind of bad at this,” Richie said. “I mean, speaking for myself, I haven’t had a lot of practice.” 

Eddie laughed, a little. “You’re already better at this stuff than me,” he said, muffled by Richie’s jacket. 

Richie pulled back to look at him, almost shyly. “You held my hand in public today,” he said. “I’ve never done that with anyone before, you know? And it’s not a big — I know it’s stupid. I know we’re not fourteen and it doesn’t matter. But it did — I mean, it was. I liked it, I guess.” 

“Yeah?” Eddie had hardly thought about the gesture until he’d already done it. It made him feel oddly proud that Richie had thought it was even a little romantic. 

“Yeah. I did.” Richie smiled, and Eddie loved him. He hoped it was obvious on his face. He hoped Richie knew it completely. 

“I want to do stuff like that,” he said. “You know — hold hands at the movies or whatever. Dumb teenage shit.” 

Richie was grinning widely at him, looking pleased — looking, Eddie thought, affectionate, and happy to be where he was. Eddie tried to hold that thought in his mind, and not second-guess or overanalyze. “You wanna go to prom with me, Eds?” he said. “Wanna give me your class ring?” 

“Maybe I do. So what?” 

Richie leaned over and kissed him, warm and almost familiar now. His lips tasted like vanilla ice cream. There was a lot of merit, Eddie thought, to classic flavors. 

“Do you wanna go steady with me?” Richie said, fluttering his eyelashes. 

“Shut up,” Eddie said fondly. “Shut up. Let’s go home.” 

Later, Eddie would change the bandages on Richie’s hand. Richie would wince in pain while Eddie wound the gauze tight and careful around the cut, but it would already be healing. And when Richie held a hand out to him and said, eyes bright, “Kiss it better?”, Eddie would take Richie’s hand carefully in his, turn the palm toward his lips, and he would. 


End file.
